The Netherlands Kinship Panel Study (NKPS) involves the development of a database that allows the examination of family and kinship in the Netherlands from a dynamic multi-actor perspective. The increasingly complex nature of contemporary family relationships has posed society and policymakers with a series of new and challenging questions, but the lack of institutional and scientific growth in family studies has left this potential unrealized. The scarcity of high-quality databases has affected the competitiveness of Dutch family studies in the international academic community.

The NKPS offers a large-scale panel survey that is accessible to the national and international research community. This study has been explicitly undertaken to provide a data resource for a wide range of researchers.

The NKPS-data are collected from multiple actors, by multiple methods, and at multiple points in time.

• Multi-actor. This implies that the focus is on relationships and networks of relationships rather than on individuals. Data are collected from individual respondents (so-called Anchors) as well as from family members (so-called Survey Alters). Survey Alters are: the partner, a maximum of two children aged 15 and over, father/mother, and a brother/sister aged 15 and over. Survey Alters do not necessarily co-reside with the Anchor.

• Multi-method. A large-scale survey with pre-structured questions is complemented with in-depth studies (mini-panels) using flexible interview schedules. In the survey, the data are collected by means of face-to-face interviews and self-completion questionnaires.

• Panel. Relationships are in constant flux. The NKPS is a panel study in order to understand the dynamic nature of family solidarity and to study causes and effects of solidarity within family relationships. The waves will be spaced three years apart.

The first central component of the NKPS is the emphasis on the nature and degree of solidarity within family relationships. Solidarity is defined as `feelings of mutual connectedness in family relationships and how these are expressed in behavioral terms. Three dimensions are distinguished: instrumental, social and emotional solidarity.

The second central component is the focus on family relationships in a broad sense, instead of just relationships within the nuclear family.

The data are from two samples from the Dutch population. The first (the main sample) is a random sample of individuals within private households in the Netherlands, with a minimum age of 18 and a maximum age of 79. The second (the migrant sample) is a stratified random sample of members of the four largest migrant groups in the Netherlands: Turks, Moroccans, Surinamese and Dutch Antilleans. The NKPS collaborated with the Social Position and Use of Welfare Provisions by Migrants survey for the collection of data among the migrants.

Different data collection forms were used in the NKPS main study. To collect data from Anchors, we used Computer Aided Personal Interviewing (CAPI), supplemented with self-completion questionnaires. To collect data from Survey Alters, we used self-completion questionnaires only. Anchors who had previously refused to participate in the main study or who had not been reached, filled in a substitute questionnaire an abridged, self-completion version of the CAPI questionnaire. The fieldwork of the main study resulted in 9771 interviews or substitute questionnaires.

The data from the NKPS are freely accessible via the NKPS website to researchers affiliated with academic and (semi-)government organizations. To access the data files researchers must have registered as NKPS data users and have undersigned the NKPS privacy policy. No one has any exclusive right or priority to use the NKPS to work on any research question.